Chefs urged to use other fish varieties
Seafood Week, which runs until tomorrow (11 October), is encouraging chefs to use less common varieties of fish in a bid to sustain future fish stocks. The campaign, in its second year, is organised by the Sea Fish Industry Authority (Seafish).
Research commissioned by Seafish shows that two-thirds of the UK population do not know what a langoustine is and just under half have never eaten a mussel or a pilchard. Nevertheless, the British are eating more fish, but too much of endangered species such as Atlantic cod and salmon. In the year to August, expenditure on seafood rose by 5% to £1.5b, including £354,050 on cod and £282,029 on salmon.
Rick Stein, who launched Seafood Week at Billingsgate Market in London, commented: "You get the do-gooders rushing around saying, ‘You can't eat this, you can't eat that,' but you're not going to make the problem go away by not eating fish. If you stop eating fish, its price goes down, so fishermen have to actually catch more to make a living. It's a catch-22 situation. The answer is to eat lots of different varieties to take the pressure off the endangered species."
Seafish is promoting the greater use of 20 varieties of fish, including John Dory, huss, megrim, pomfret and witch, all of which are found in British waters. More than 500 fish-and-chip shops are selling alternatives to cod and haddock, such as moonfish, parrotfish and red snapper.
Chef and restaurateur Aldo Zilli opens the Falmouth Oyster Festival today, and the Anglesey Oyster and Shellfish Festival takes place tomorrow.
by Ben Walker
